Govt Revokes PSA Detention of 31 Persons

BY: Umer Maqbool

Srinagar: Amid Coronavirus outbreak, the government has revoked detention orders of 31 persons who were languishing in different jails of J&K under the controversial Public Safety Act.

Home department has revoked detention orders of 31 persons lodged in different jails of J&K. “All of them were lodged in jails of J&K,” they said, adding that 11 were lodged in Kotbhalwal jail Jammu, 14 in Central jail Srinagar, four in district jail Rajouri and two in Kathua jail.

According to sources, the list doesn’t include any prominent separatist or mainstream leader detained under the PSA after abrogation of Article 370 by the BJP-led Central government. Former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, bureaucrat-turned-politician

Shah Faesal , National Conference general secretary Ali Muhammad Sagar, former cabinet minister Naeem Akther and three other leaders are in detention under the law after completing six months in preventive detention under the Criminal Procedure Code(CrPC).

The release of detainees comes at a time when the Supreme Court has directed states and Union Territories to decongest prisons in the wake of outbreak of deadly COVID-19.

Sources disclosed that government has also decided to release a number of PSA detainees lodged in jails outside J&K.

“The proposal to release them has put on hold due to nationwide lockdown announced by the Centre to break the chain of transmission of COVID-19. It is difficult to bring them back to J&K in the prevailing situation,” they said. Post abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, PSA detainees were also lodged in jails of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.”

On December 4, 2019, the Union Home Ministry informed the Parliament that 234 prisoners belonging to J&K are currently lodged in different jails of Uttar Pradesh and 27 other inmates in prisons in Haryana.The shifting of detainees outside J&K became possible only in July 2018 when Governor NN Vohra did away with a legal provision that prohibited government from lodging state subject residents detained under Public Safety Act in jails outside the state.

“Provided that the detenues who are permanent residents of the state shall not be lodged in jails outside the state,” read the provisions which was by deleted by Vohra during Governor’s rule—(KNO)

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